Watch Rush’s ‘Family Guy’ Guest Appearance

Leave it to Family Guy to make room for a Rush gag in a tribute to classic literature.

The long-running Fox animated series paid tribute to the venerable Canadian trio during its Nov. 20 episode, "High School English," with a bit worked into a look back at Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. As anyone with any level of familiarity with the band's catalog has probably already guessed, this served as the perfect setup for a joke inspired by the Moving Pictures classic "Tom Sawyer."

In the interlude, which you can watch above (at least until the network's lawyers have it taken down), viewers saw Tom Sawyer ("played" by Chris Griffin) and Huck Finn (Peter Griffin) meet up; after Huck asked Tom why he was so far from home, Tom responded, "Rush is playing here tonight. They wrote a song about me." This exchange is followed by a quick glimpse of the Rush concert.

Family Guy and Rush fans are no doubt aware that this isn't the first time the band and the show have (sort of) crossed pop culture paths. In the 2006 episode "Chick Cancer," the character Stewie Griffin says at one point that he's "as cool as a cheetah" — a line followed by a cutaway gag depicting Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah rocking out to "Tom Sawyer" while getting high on snacks and air-drumming his way through a glass coffee table.

Rush, meanwhile, made their own nod to Family Guy with the animated parodyFamily Goy, which they included as a bonus feature on their Clockwork Angels DVD.